


Trinketeers, Tale 1: The Illusion Knuckle

by RooJadebow



Series: Trinketeers [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Major Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 18,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RooJadebow/pseuds/RooJadebow
Summary: A lone adventurer, ranger Eve Jadebow, is convinced that true treasures are small and hardly noticeable. After putting her connections in the Order of Whispers to discover a few of the trinkets, she meets the necessity of building a team to achieve her goals.Her first target is an aging bandit leader who established a camp in an unlikely location. His caution, along with communication issues inside Eve's team will make the task much harder than expected.
Series: Trinketeers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633402
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Eve Begins

“Clink!” went the clean glasses in hands that shed a lot of blood! It was a high day in the Kenna’s bandit encampment. Current camp leader (they were changing faster than gloves) Eduardo the Fruitful and his goons managed to pick up a supply carriage full of wine plus the Seraph convoy, and an adventurer as a pleasant bonus.

“That’s the most morale-raising kind of stuff, don’t ya think so, Alan? No way the Tamini asshooves are putting any of themselves on my place! No” — he sipped from the glass, — “damn way!”

He had to say it really loud as the partying outside the tent was going very loud with all the bandits and centaurs dancing around the campfire. His right hand Alan spoke much quieter:  
“Can’t disagree with that. How about we leave the captured Seraph boys in the cages but take out the girls so that they would make a dance for us? The adventurer girl seems to want that on her own.”

Eduardo took a moment to make sure he heard it correctly.  
“On her own, yeah? Then let them dance! Let’s hope they’re not yet tired when we are!” He stood up, adjusted the shining purple quiver on his belt and went out to shout out the order.

The seraph girls and the adventurer were led to the large campfire and stripped of their armour. Then the bandits took some smouldering branches out of the fire and ordered them to dance. Those who weren’t exactly in the mood were encouraged by hot branches swiftly applied to their legs.

Everyone was so captured by the process and the alcohol in their blood that it took a lot more than usual to realize that the guards are shouting about something important...

In mere minutes Seraph had the encampment conquered and the bandit leader captured. After it finally was quiet, the Seraph warrior approached the half-naked adventurer with a shining purple quiver hanging on her waist and her pet eagle on her shoulder.

“A cute little plot of yours, I must say. If I could keep you from going forward and have some more of that, we could free Kessex Hills from the centaur and bandit threat for good!”

The girl answered with a quirky smile and a wave of her blonde hair, then said:

“Just the book definition of a life lesson. I better go see some more life someplace else.”

“This one’s in the books for sure.” — the sergeant replied. “By the way, one of my best men, Ponte, seems to be willing to meet you more closely”.

“Oh yeah?” — she giggled sonorously.

“I think so. Got to go to the rest, we’ll have a celebration of our own. Good luck on your path, Eve Jadebow!”


	2. The Idea

Years went by. Never stopping in one place for a long time seemed to prove the right way for Eve. The young ranger seemed to be everywhere, which made her a valuable member of the Order of Whispers. She fought Zhaitan among the Pact legions and witnessed him falling down to his death.

Then it was time for her to decide what to do next. After the dust has settled, her fate seemed to be in her service to the Order, continuing to gather the primary weapon of the modern times: the information. But you can’t squeeze the information in your hand, you can’t smell it, you can’t see it. You just know it, and one thing Eve knew for sure is this is not what she wanted.

She owned a flat in Lion’s Arch; it was gifted by the Order, but the owner had only been there three or four times... yeah, that never-stopping-in-one-place-thing. As she opened the squeaky door slowly, full of doubt, she saw that she did in fact somehow manage to fill up her living place with different kinds of junk.  
“I need to clean this up, right?” — she asked herself looking in the eyes of her pet eagle named Snail, but started to sort the loot from all over the Tyria she gathered right away. Coughing from the dust, which had different taste on her tongue with each new piece of armour discovered. “Is that a charr coat? Why did I need to take... oh yeah, it’ll be a good blanket for me sitting in that armchair, drinking wine all on my own, watching the rain strike my window."

“Wine...” — she repeated, starting to search for something specific. With another trophy set of armour thrown aside, there it was. The purple quiver that has lost most of his shine over time, a trinket of not much practical use. However, it seemed so valuable at the time, when her journey was only beginning.  
She met Ponte for the first time then. That night he told her about how clever it was to make the double-factor distraction with wine and dance to make an assault on the bandits later on.

He seemed like a boring person (well, everyone who could stay with Seraph for more than a week was a boring person for her), but his consistency and constructiveness did appeal to her, so she kept seeing him from time to time. And she needed a conclusion to her rushing thoughts. From his mouth. Right now.

She drew a piece of paper out of her writing table and wrote without sitting down:

“Hi Ponte,  
I would like to have a talk with you. Crow’s. As soon as possible. This is very important.”  
Then she paused for a second and added: “I need it”, then rolled the paper up, tied it with a crimson ribbon, secured it on her Snail and let the bird go out of the window.

* * *  
“If I understood you correctly, you found a remnant of your early days and thought that you are willing to hunt for them on a regular basis?”

“Yeah. But not further than that.” — Eve responded, stein of ale in her right hand already half-empty.

Ponte didn’t need a lick on alcohol to gain some confidence. He seemed to be the physical embodiment of the confidence word. Without his self-crafted armour on he seemed small and non-dangerous, but the calm look in his eyes was still giving away the might of his arms hidden under the long sleeves. His dark hair was cut very short so that he could spend less time caring about it. Also helmets are easier to wear when your hair doesn’t get in the way all the time. Only by the slightest movement in his brows it could be guessed that he’s amidst of a thinking process.

“The death rate for lone treasure hunters is astonishingly high, you know.”

“I’ll exploit Order scouts for the best deals.”

“Good, but not enough. You might be as versatile of a fighter as you think, but you cannot do everything alone. By raising the stakes, you raise the chance of meeting the makers accordingly.” — Eve looked aside, disappointment thickly painted on her face. “But there’s a simple solution to that.” — the smith continued, regaining the girl’s attention. “Build a team.”

“A team?”

“You’ll give them a lot of the gold, that’s for sure. But you set the rules, and you could keep the trinkets to yourself sometimes. That was the point, right? Your business is not about gaining godly might, nor is it about dragons. Pick adventurers like you, pay them fairly and be not betrayed or anything.” — Ponte’s brows went up, signalizing this is end of thought.

Eve raised her eyes from under the table and slowly put a playful smile onto her lips.

“Then you are first in my...”

“No, no, no” — he laughed. “Find somebody who would actually like to join such a campaign. My job is to forge stuff and occasionally join raids to make them too easy. I’m not in. At least not yet.”

“Ah, you selfish bastard! I’m seeking support, and you!”

“Don’t bother talking me into it. Maybe I’ll join for your second endeavour, if there will be one. But I have a lot of plans and orders for now.”

Despite that slight argument, they were both smiling by the end of the conversation. After a moment of silence dedicated to emptying the stein, Eve stood up, thanked Ponte and quit the tavern with more questions than answers.


	3. The Announcement

She sat in a cosy armchair, covered by a trophy coat, holding a trophy book named “Chemical aspects of platinum forge by S. Rympel” she just found among last unsorted things in her flat. The tea in the cup standing on the table was also foreign:  
“Judging by the greyish violet fumes, I must have picked it up somewhere on an adjacent planet.”

Eve turned the book to its backside, took a second piece of paper, looked at how Snail watches the raindrops smash into window glass, and wrote:

“HELLO ADVENTURERS!  
IF YOU WISH TO TAKE PART IN EXCITING SEARCH FOR UNIQUE ARTIFACTS ACROSS TYRIA, FACING TROUBLES AND TRIUMPHS, THEN LET’S MEET IN CROW’S NEST TAVERN DAY 76, 7 O’CLOCK (IN THE EVENING)  
IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF GRAVE DANGER YOU MIGHT FACE, THEN YOU ARE NOT INVITED TO THE TRINKETEERS  
-EVE JADEBOW”

Then she wrote this two more times on two more papers ant stuck them onto three bulletin boards of the city among “Searching for a corporate chef”, “Skycrapper: the famous Norn metal band finally in Lion’s Arch” and “seling garaje nock two tiems my name is boja. hallo”.

After she placed the last announcement, she looked around. People of all races and all professions were walking around in a quick pace. Few of them will actually read the paper, even less will bother to go to the meeting, which is in three days. Eve got anxious again. She didn’t know how many recruits will come. It could be zero (that’s why three days), it could be such a crowd that the bartender will ask them to go outside unless she orders drinks for all of them. Also, how many does she need? Three? Four? Ten?

“Am I going out of my mind? Answer me, Snail!” — Eve said looking into clueless eyes of the eagle on her left shoulder.

Eve fixed the feather hat on her head to regain at least some of the self-confidence, then headed back to her flat, where she’ll spend the longest three days in her life.


	4. Assembled

She wandered through the city, trying to fulfil her bottomless curiosity and gather something for the Order even though she was in the beginning of a 30-days vacation. She even managed to discover a minor contraband occasion in the Sanctum Harbor. However, the city was getting too small for her with too high speed.

She remembered the sleepless nights of Orrian crusade, when the decomposing enemy was rising right from under the Pact forces’ feet and you had to stay alert at all times, ready to fire the arrows or swing the blade. She was so exhausted then that she was moving her limbs using her memory of their placement, as she did not feel anything. To feel like this again, she only needed to put a brief stop to her adventures, a tiny moment of uncertainty.

She slept when she could, then took her colleague’s advice and started swimming in the morning. Then she tried watching fish swimming.

“Back and forth, much like the people here. At least they don’t make as much noise.”

Then she looked into the horizon, enriching the relaxing experience even more.

When Ponte once said he spends most of the time in the city and this is common for many people, Eve did not pay much attention. If she did, she would have been in deep shock as she... well, couldn’t really stop. It was fine for her to spend tens of minutes watching butterflies in the grassland, as it was part of moving forward, objective existing clearly in her mind.

“You’ll be happy when you learn it, eventually. But that time has not yet come for you.” — the smith said.

She passed the staircases and entered the tavern half an hour early, feeling almost normal. She took a stein of ale as her usual respect to such establishments’ hospitality. People were coming in and out. She was wondering if any of them were her future recruits. Did they recognize her already?

“That charr looks huge. I’d like to have him as my front line. That sylvari man sitting next to him — he’s wearing his armour, he also looks tanky, but he’s just a piece of bark, is he not? Will he not break under a crushing blow?” — Eve’s thoughts were distracting her from the nothing which was going to be happening for some more time. “Or that Guardian norn by that table. He’s so cheerful. It would be nice to have him for the heals and for the morale. Or at least that asura, who’s laughing louder than him, he’s a Guardian too. That woman is of the noble. Her dark violet dress is so well chosen and so to the floor. Should also burn bright. Where’s she going? Here?”

The screeching sound of a wooden chair being moved and a pleasant scent of her perfume was like a shouting “yes”.

“Good evening.” — her posture and expertly styled short black wavy hair was supposed to emit confidence, but the trembling in her quiet voice gave away her anxiety. “You must be Eve Jadebow, assembling a looter crew.”

“Yeah, The Trinketeers, you were close.” — Eve answered.

“It may sound different, but the meaning is the same.” — the noble seemed to care for not being proved mistaken ten seconds into the conversation.

“Not exactly. I’ll explain later...” — Eve overlooked the place once more and finished the sentence: “...when the rest will arrive. It’s still ten more minutes.”

The lady looked down to the table, then to the very fine view of the evening city across the wooden rail.

“Nice view from here. I don’t go there usually, it’s mostly ballrooms and such.”

“You know we’re going to do quite a risky business together, right?”

“Yes. I have a lot of good raids behind my shoulders, but I wanted something out of my comfort zone” — the woman’s talking got back to her comfort zone all of a sudden. “I am Annika Mindel, daughter of Harrow Mindel, Head of Economic Policy Committee of Western Commons of Divinity’s Reach. Elementalist by profession.”

As the talk got closer to actual purpose of meeting, it also sparked interest inside Eve’s mind:

“I’ve seen Elementalists in action. Swings of their staves, flashes of colours and, most importantly, massive damage left by those.”

“That’s what use I’ll be of. Oh, hello there!” — she greeted someone who approached their table. Eve looked up and discovered that it was that exact sylvari man in the heavy armour.

“Hello. I guess the four of us are the Trinketeers now.” — he said.

“Four? I only see three of us.” — while Annika was saying this, Eve looked around and saw another sylvari, a petite being sitting in a chair. She also could swear this person was not yet there a second ago.

“I’m Owen Schachels, Guardian by profession, and this is... uh... my sister Alde...”

“... Thief, right?” — Eve made a guess that did not need any further confirmation, then took over the initiative. — “Until I’m sure no one else is coming, you guys could take some drinks, they’re fine here. Uuhm... Don’t hesitate. We’ll need to build a warm atmosphere around this table if you and I really plan to spend some time together.”  
* * *  
Fifteen minutes later Eve checked for people who didn’t make their way to the table. Upon founding none, she came back, and started to express:

“The Trinketeers is an organization that is focused on collecting trinkets. 

There is no shortage of loot hoarders over Tyria. The bad guys invade the good guys, then again and again, then everyone knows about that, then hoarders just find the bad guys’ lair, then — boom! — the loot is their!

We don’t do that. We aim for smaller thingies with much and much more value. The real treasure worthy of a small house stuffed with gold coins is most commonly smaller than a human fist, and no one would really risk his life in exchange for obtaining it.

Until you hold it, you never know if it makes you rich or if it makes you frustrated of the time you wasted for this, right?

It appears that I know. With my connections in the Order of Whispers, I keep an eye with true jewels I discovered myself in various places across Tyria, but never had the opportunity to get them by force, due to not having more people around.

As I said before, this is not a friendly hiking trip. We will be using all of our skills to prevail in combat and in peace. We shall be traveling far; we shall occasionally meet grave danger with no one but ourselves to help us out. Is everyone still going for it?”

Annika’s eyes were going wild from Owen and Alde to random tavern scenery, which probably meant she was in one of the deeper doubts of her life. The heavily-equipped sylvari broke the silence first:

“Yes.” — that was all he said.

“Me too.” — Alde immediately followed.

“Sweet Lyssa, I’ll regret that! I’m in!” — Annika felt that she had to call it.

“Great! However, a verbal agreement will not do, so I prepared these” — Eve took out three scrolls with some writings. “These are contracts for each of you. Sign them quick, read them not, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Wow, that must be what they call calligraphic text.” — Owen said right away.

That line seemed to cause physical pain to Annika. “That’s just the best attempts of a barely educated person to write something readable, you ignorant branch! I studied calligraphy for ten years of my life to follow my father’s administrative steps so I have a moral right to burn you to your roots right now!” — somehow she managed to not let that escape her tongue, but saw Eve succeeding in reading some of that from her face expression. The ranger responded with a so-so gesture.

The contract was some formal stuff Eve felt like writing, such as how to split the gains, (ir)responsibility for the injuries and role division basics. Nothing interesting like hidden catches and legal loopholes — she was sure that there will be enough dirty tricks from their enemies later and, as much as Eve wanted to have maximum benefit, she knew these won’t help build trust in the newborn team.

“It says: ‘upon obtaining the trinket, we decide if we are selling it, using it for the organization’s purposes or, if considered of no material or functional worth, giving it to the Organizer for safekeeping.’ Who defines if it is worthless or not?” — Owen asked, trying his best to look suspicious.

“Collectively. If I call the ancient satan devil’s jewels a pile of junk and grab them to myself, feel free to smack my impudent muzzle. Uh… not literally though.” — Eve answered calmly.

“Okay then.” — he left his signature seconds after Annika. Alde followed their actions shortly after.

“Alde, do you have any question regarding the contract?” — Eve asked.

Alde shrugged. “No I don’t.” Then she looked back at the paper. “I can’t read anyway.”  
* * *  
“We better be quick to start our endeavour until my information gets outdated. We meet outside the northern gate tomorrow in, let’s say, seven o’clock in the morning.” — Eve thought to conclude the meeting.

“Hold on, ranger! Don’t we need to have a clue about what are we actually looking for? You already know what kind of a trinket is this, why not tell us?” — Owen asked right away.

“Oh. I… didn’t think someone could be interested in that.” — Eve responded, seemingly reconsidering her life viewing.

“This is the fucking purpose of us sitting here right now!” — Annika said using the loudest whisper she could use.

“Okay. I’ll tell you.

One of my agents once told me: “A supply caravan was robbed by bandits in Blazeridge Steppes.” Then I said: “Okay”. Or no, I actually said “Not okay, they uh… shouldn’t be robbed, that’s bad. But what’s so special in this, except for that bandits are very rare guests in the Steppes?” And then they says “Yeah! And that was a hell of a swarm of bandits! What is even weirder, a lot of them had the same face.””

“A Mesmer bandit on drugs?” — Annika asked.

“I thought it must be an artefact of some sort, so I told to keep an eye on these guys. They were patient, I admit. They didn’t want to become a threat serious enough to deserve thorough cleaning. But they did strike again, and with great success again. The Sentinels decided to ignore the threat again as the caravan was carrying a lot of gold but not a lot of supplies they need to fight the Brand that is very close to them.

This time the agent noticed that all of the “illusionary” bandits wore a special knuckle. Also their shots and punches were in fact very non-illusionary. No matter how it got to their leader, it should not stay in his hands. It should be in ours, providing a lot of use either as a weapon, if we can master it, or as the source of our wealth.”

Eve overlooked the party expecting more questions. Instead, Owen nodded and stood up.

“I think that now we know what we needed to know. Thank you and we’ll see you tomorrow.” — he said.

“Let’s hope that my spells hit all of them. Have a good night, Eve Jadebow.” — Said Annika before standing up and heading towards the exit.

“Bye-bye.” — said Eve. “Bye Alde.” — looking at the place she was sitting before, but there was no trace of her already.

Seven was early for a regular person and Eve knew it. However, she wanted to make the start of the journey as close to her present as possible.

“Am I the leader or not? A night ambush is not going to wait until you wake up, stretch yourself and line your eyes. They don’t fear injuries and possible death, are they supposed to not come ‘cause it’s too early?” — the ranger muttered to herself, and only Snail listened to her politely from Eve’s shoulder.


	5. The Antagonist

Both preserved and Branded parts of the Blazeridge Steppes were largely silent. The Brand had ears there — and where he did not, there were hungry predators accustomed to the plains of little content and lots of danger. Every of the few bushes seemed dead, but was full of life in fact.

Then there was the Dragonbrand territory scarring through the whole area, dividing it. You could only cross it with a large charr convoy making intimidating sounds and swinging with their blades.

Somewhere near Monument Grounds, however, a group of bandits managed to take a hold of a small place by the Wall. Hidden among large boulders and ruins, they scared away the devourer population and ghosts who were usually lurking here and established a camp. They seemed to be a nuisance to everyone in the area, but these who were strong enough did not yet care to get rid of them, and the rest were too scared for their life.

Soon after the bandits’ second heist, the Branded finally decided to try and spread themselves to the location of the camp. They were attempting to infect the scouts and, after some time, decided to send a formidable crystal-lined squad to try to take the area by force. The strangest thing about the camp was how few people they had and what huge arsenal of weapons they had.

Humans, rock dogs, charr — led by a bulky yet agile Ogre Hunter — glowing with their distinctive purple-lined body parts, approached the place they thought the bandits were hiding. The scouts high on the rocks were hiding one after another.

Then there were the gates. They were closed, an orchestra of guns were staring at the aliens, but a slender bandit was standing in front of it.

“We have position. Prostition. No, it’s pro…po…sition.” — the ogre pronounced using all of what was left of his ability to speak.

“Just say it, we’re attempted to be fooled by a mentally retarded.” — the man replied with distinct arrogance.

His voice wasn’t loud and the ogre got that he’s getting insulted, but the branded beast decided to finish what he began before smashing his smiley face against the gate.

“You come under service of Kralkatorrik” — that came out surprisingly easy. — “or you die suffering.”

“Under service? Like these guys which you “recruited”?” — said the human. Three corpses of scouts with signs of dragon corruption fell down from the gate right near him.

“Enough of this! Yes or no!” — the ogre was angry, rock dogs felt it and were also readying for the assault.

“You turn your asses around or you die quick and painless!” — was the tall bandit’s response before he spit under the ogre’s feet.  
That was it. The chief roared and smashed the bandit’s head with his mace — but the human went out with a “pop” like a soap bubble. The mace just banged against the gate.

Confused at first, the Branded continued to smash the gate with their weapons. It collapsed quickly — it was not enough time to build strong fortifications — but the attackers suffered some damage from the guns on the walls.

When they stepped into the broken gate, however, they were truly confused. They had expected a fairly large group of bandits with far too many guns to handle, but before them was an army! Most of them had the same long smirking face — face of the invaders’ inevitable defeat.

The sound of this battery shredding the Branded to pieces was truly deafening. Only the mighty ogre was still alive after this. When the smoke has settled, he was approached by — as it seemed — the same person he saw at the gate. There was a bluish knuckle in his right hand. The man snapped his fingers — and the army disappeared, leaving a relatively small bandit community.

“You’ll need a better plan to get rid of me next time” — He said calmly.

“Who… are… you?”

“I’m called Aris the Elusive. And today is not the day I’m hiding for my life.” — Aris then raised a pistol in his left hand and ended his enemy’s sufferings quickly — right as he promised.

“The reception was warm enough, right, lads?” — He said to the rest of the crew, but when he was passing by them, he only gave a high five to the last illusion of himself he did not yet disjoint. — “So satisfying this time. The loot is yours!”


	6. Equipped?

Adventurers and pack bulls were in constant movement in and out of the Northern gate of Lion’s Arch. One of them went twenty meters away off the road, placed her heavy backpack on the ground, gave her pet eagle a treat and began to wait for her mates to catch up to her at the place they agreed upon.  
Eve pulled out a large scroll out of a side section of her backpack. It turned out to be a map of the whole Eastern Tyria, conveniently containing all of the paths they need to walk through.

As Snail croaked unsettlingly, the ranger guessed that a second person has arrived.

“Hi Alde.” — she said without looking away from the map, as that would be a waste of neck muscles. — “I would recommend hiding in your shadowy stuff from fiends, not friends. An advice for the future.”

“You’re not a friend of me yet. Officially we’re colleagues.” — Alde appeared from seemingly nowhere, feeling insecure in the morning sun.

“You don’t have many friends, do you?” — Eve tucked the map behind her belt. — “If our party starts achieving our goals, we might just fix that.” — she finished the sentence with a disarming smile that was not mutual.

Alde sat down. Her satchel was small as the thief always needed little to meet her needs, and didn’t have the wealth to exceed them anyway.

“Where’s your brother? It’s weird you didn’t come together.” — Eve asked.

“Owen… is not a friend of me either. We are just related, don’t even meet that often. I didn’t know he of the entire city was also going to join you.” — Alde parried, adding passion to her muted voice for the first time.

“Oh. Okay, I got that. There our colleagues are now. Let’s start.” — said Eve.

Owen and Annika were walking over the bridge, chatting merrily. The sylvari had a rather large backpack, though it seemed mostly empty. The noble had none.

Eve cleared her throat and said as they came closer: “We will make our way to Blazeridge Steppes in East Ascalon. However, in order to get there, we need to pass through Shiverpeak Mountains. It’s going to be cold and snowy.” — she stared at Annika’s light dress which was similar to what she wore yesterday in terms of ineffectiveness at heat preservation. — “Annika, daughter of Harrow Mindel, for Dwayna’s sake, are you sure you are ready for the journey?”

“I can always get myself warm with fire magic!” — Annika replied.

“Then where is your supply bag, what are you going to eat du...?”

“It’s an invisible one, of course! You think you have to carry a giant ugly chunk of rawhide leather to keep your stuff in? If I prefer to look like a big city lady, it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to survive a day outside its borders.” — The lady raised her voice considerably for this one, but quickly calmed down. — “We know how to make a monster slaughter in style.”

“Now the spotlight goes off thee. Enough words. We embark.” — Eve concluded.


	7. The Supply Cart

The bandit leader was taking a rest in his tent which leaned upon an ancient rock, the mighty trinket never leaving his arm as he was maintaining presence of fake scouts, a design that he developed solely to raise morale and feeling of security amongst the actual scouts. Thankfully, the Brand was not applying pressure onto the camp anymore as of now, but Aris knew it was not yet time to lower their guard. They had success with this place, but a bandit’s success usually lasts mere moments.

Suddenly, a scout ran into the tent and reported:  
“Unknown bandits coming from west, they carry a supply cart!”

A second one then also pulled the entrance curtain and asked:  
“Why the hell didn’t the illusion report first, Aris?”

“I have tens of limbs, but only two eyes. We didn’t send any mail for other leaders, right? Let them in, but stay behind. This is most likely a decoy.”

The newly rebuilt gates opened with deafening creaks and snaps. Then the cart went it, surrounded by an orchestra of barrels, all ready to sing.

“No need to worry! We’re friends! We found out about your hiding place and agreed that it is a genius place to make a strong outpost at!” — Shouted the human sitting on the supplies. He was clearly very nervous.

Bandits of Aris were actively exchanging glances behind the projections, one of which said:

“Where did you come from? Iron Marches, just like us?” — Aris asked using his illusion.

“Yes! Of course!” — the man answered with great confidence.

“And the Sentinels of Skara Braevus gladly let you through just days after we had to fight our way through their guards?” — the illusion inquired, then pulled out a pistol and shot right into the geometrical center of the cart.

It went off with a huge blast that was definitely seen from Skara Braevus. Wheels, planks, bandit limbs and wannabe supplies made a great mess out of the campgrounds. The living wall of illusions protected the human crew from most of the damage.

Some of the intruders, however, seemed to have survived the blast. Real Aris the Elusive’s tired steps once more approached them.

“Now, the story. Somehow you dumbasses found out we are here, and then decided to join us. But you didn’t know — ‘cause you’re dumbasses — that one or two bandits can sneak through the Sentinel guards, twenty of them can kill them or knock them out — and we did the second to not draw too much attention, but eight will just be captured and brought to the Blood Legion warchief.

And his genius tactical mind would give birth to an idea: you go and explode the guys who came earlier, and that would be your only chance to not be executed right away! That’s what you tried, but now I’ll help you finish the story.

Your brilliant plan has succeeded. The explosion killed me, you shot many bandits, the rest fled and were probably eaten by the Branded beasts. Aris and his bandits are no longer a threat for the allied Legions. You will tell them these lies to be spared and have a chance to get out of here. Don’t you think this is a brilliant plan for both of us?”

One of the newly arrived bandits looked up from his wounded stomach, into Aris’ eyes and nodded.

“Now take your guns, have some of our trophies to look convincing and get the hell out of my camp.” — said Aris, then walked away to have a well-earned nap on yet another good day for him.


	8. The Prophecy

Southeast Gendarran Fields were a very pleasant walk for the party. The cloudiness was very occasional, so sunlight was showering the early crops and meadows richly. It wasn’t too warm though, as it still was only late Zephyr, so the travelers identified the weather for their road’s beginning as ideal.

Shiverpeak Mountains rose higher and higher above the horizon until they were almost overhanging the travellers with their millions of tons of stone, hardness of which was itself a subject for campfire tales. There was a cave going through the mount, the party’s ticket inside the area. As the road was important for trade routes, Lionguard were protecting it quite consistently from neighbouring dredge.

Eve went through the cave, leaving a nod to each of the peacekeepers on the way, Owen followed suit, so did Annika, even though she made her nods barely visible. As Alde preferred to stay in the shadows, the duty officer wrote in his notebook after checking the time: “10 a.m. 3 adventurers”.

Coming back to sunlight in snowy Shiverspur Front, Annika asked: “Aren’t we going to have a stop at Junction Haven?”

Eve was slightly confused by the question: “What for? Are you cold already?”

“No, not at all! I just wanted to get some hot water for a cup of coffee. I wanted to do some fortune-telling before we get into our first skirmishes.”

“That’s a not good enough reason for falling behind on time.” — The ranger was sceptical. 

“Oh, just ten minutes!” — The elementalist persisted.

“Ten minutes!? Are you joking?” — Eve turned to Annika with her widest grin and quickly added: “Give me the cup.”

“Yeah, you’ll probably be faster than me.” — the magician said while pulling the item out of her invisible bag.  
Instead of rushing to Junction Haven, Eve made a series of whistles and teeth clacking, then handed the cup to Snail. The bird took it with its claws and flied up and towards the walls right away.

“You told your eagle to take hot water into the cup and bring it back?” — Owen asked.

“Of course. Also mentioned to try and not spill any of it. Snail’s not very fast or strong for a bird, but I love how he understands when I explain. You know, any ranger can tell their pet “Go get that” or “Cover me”, or even some tactical stuff in the battle, and they do that. But that guy is kind of smart, that was really satisfying when I realized that learning more of eagle language might expand what I can say to him so greatly.”

“Eagle language? So different birds have their own?” — Alde expressed some interest.

“Yes! Most of their simple signals are similar, but more advanced sounds are unique to each species. Their insult vocabulary is... impressive. By the way, there he is already.” — Eve took the cup and gave it to Annika. “Now you add your coffee and keep going. As I was saying, Ponte found a special book for me on that topic, so I could tell more.”

Annika immediately asked after hearing a new name: “Who’s Ponte?”

“Ponte is Ponte Flori! He is a very good friend of mine, a smith back in Lion’s Arch, a mighty warrior and a very sweet fellow.” — Eve always had a warm feeling when she recollected her moments with Ponte.

Until the mean noble shattered it with exquisite cruelty: “And an accomplished coward.”

“Why do you say so?” — Eve responded with hidden anger.

“You say “mighty warrior”. You say “very good friend”. Still, when you asked him to help with something new and dangerous — and you asked him, that’s for sure — what did he do? He turned it down.” — Annika continued the thought violently.

“Heya, hold on, Annie!” — Owen hurried to smooth the corners. — “You’re hard on people you don’t even know. Maybe he was busy going on another raid. It wasn’t as dope as you say. I mean... He knew you are going for something dangerous, you were nervous, he probably was nervous about you too. He had to have a good excuse.”

Eve stared down to the ground: “No. Annika described it quite precisely, actually… He just turned it down. He had his usual amount of business. Maybe he just thinks this is his comfort zone that he shouldn’t leave.”

Annika saw Alde looking at her reproachfully as she was taking another sip on her coffee, so she said:

“I didn’t want it to look like it stomps his good deeds to the ground. You just gave him such a sugary characteristic that I had to remind you that no one is ideal.”

“Maybe you just keep such reminders to yourself next time, because it’s just… not nice.” — Eve replied with a saddened tone in her voice, looking strictly forward. Seconds later, however, she turned around to ask: “You done with the coffee? I want it to tell me how rich shall we be in a week, would be perfect if it just draws a loot chest on the bottom.”

The noble spilled the remaining coffee on the road, then stared inside the cup for a couple of minutes as she was walking.

“Joy, anger, passion, sadness. One more. So many emotions. Blood.”

“Do you see gold?” — Owen asked.

In a second Annika stopped where she was standing, all her attention still drawn to the cup bottom.

“What’s there?” — questioned Eve.

The elementalist kept staring inside the cup. “Death. Someone will die, someone of us. Never seen it drawn so confidently, I’m impressed.” — she finally said.  
Eve, Owen and Alde exchanged their suspicious glances.

“Gold, you ask? Yes, I think it’s written that someone’s going to benefit from this.” — Annika continued walking and reading the cup.

“How good are you at this?” — asked Owen.

“Pretty good. My mom was a great foreseer, taught me all she knew. She said: “You don’t need to keep the cup still, you don’t need to dance around it, you don’t keep a special temperature. Just be pals with your fate, the rest is ceremonial bullshit to impress the peasants.”

“You did impress us peasants.” — Eve said and smiled, but the smile was a little hesitant.  
The crew continued their way towards Snowden Drifts.


	9. Threat Seeking

Aris Prao woke up feeling badly. The headache was almost unbearable. He knew it will go away soon, but the feeling of vulnerability he had in these moments was adding to the physical pain. He pulled the Illusion Knuckle from a hidden pocket where he was always putting it when it was not required. Then Aris looked up and saw himself in the mirror. His dirty hair went gray in some places. He decided against touching it.

The camp only had water for drinking and not for washing, a drawback of Aris’ direction to not organize heists to avoid attention. It seemed that they dealt with all the threats and could start to grow in power by sending scouts to recruit actual reinforcements. But the leader wasn’t so sure. Could something interfere with the plan, something that always comes out of nowhere and strikes where it hurts way too much?

“Adventurers.” — he whispered to himself before calling the scouts in.

“One is not a threat.” — Aris lectured them. — “Two’s not enough to flock us up as well. Search for three and more. If they are moving towards us, follow them until you are sure if they are after us or not. Recruiting is our second priority.”

“Second priority? How do we get more supplies if we don’t get more people in?” — one of the bandits asked.

“Hundreds of bandit camps perished because they always wanted more rather than try and preserve what they have.” — was the response.

The scouts were unhappy with it. One of them dropped while leaving:

“We’ll just starve slowly! Death fit for a failed farmer, not a soldier of fortune!”

As the last one quit his tent, Aris smiled bitterly. He tried that. He thought once after fleeing a lost battle once again: “I have some jewelry in my bag. Why can’t I just stop? Start a farm in Queensdale, build a new life slowly and steady.”

It did not last long as his past caught up with him. Some of his former fellow bandits found out where Aris the Elusive lived now. They burned down his new house and cut his crops, just for fun of it. He witnessed his dream burn down to the ground, not yet having money for a new one.

Aris hunted them down, taking his vengeance, but he had little choice but to get back to the old illegal lifestyle again. He dreamed of going where no one knows who he is, and trying again when — and if — life gives him another chance. This one was promising, but he needed to keep the balance of powers and retain discipline inside the camp.


	10. Blizzard

Snowden Drifts welcomed the Trinketeers with roaring winds that could polish mountain slopes and with clouds of snow wrecked upon white surface, threatening to knock down any living being who attempts to sneak their way out of their homes.

Annika stared at the picture of snowstorm desert with genuine disgust.

“Believe it or not, we’re going into this, because time still matters most.” — Eve said calmly. Her mates did not seem to share her enthusiasm, however.

“Once we pass Skradden Slopes it’s zero visibility.” — stated Owen. — “I thought I’m gonna die in battle, not get lost in a blizzard and freeze to death.”

“I think I can burn our way through the snow… for some time.” — Annika offered.

“No. You will get tired very soon and we need to have you ready for a fight if we get ambushed by the Icebrood or Sons of Svanir.” — Eve refused strictly. — “They wouldn’t have been a problem if the weather wasn’t so awful, but now we will be very vulnerable.”

“Is it an option to wait until…”

“Yes, we are going to take the risks, all of them! But, you know what, we’ll just change our route slightly. We’ll go to the small ranch north of Isenfall Lake instead of Snowdrift Haven. It’s a little longer, but still in our way. Also, there is a chance the blizzard is not so rough there, as the plains on the east are probably a complete mess.”

“Agreed.” — Said Alde grumpily. It seemed like she also knew these lands.

“Let’s go then, what do we know?” — Owen said looking at Annika.

The elementalist did her best to warm herself up and not get exhausted at the same time, but that wasn’t so successful. At least they saw the orientation points occasionally showing in the endless snowflake hell. 

“I ain’t no going a step further when we get to the warm place!” — Owen shouted. Just like everyone else, he was taking steps in deep snow with visible difficulty.

“We may not have much to step onto after we’re through this!” — Annika shouted back.

Snail was resting under Eve’s coat all the time. She kept the heavy bird there for its safety. Her resolve was significantly stronger than her mates’, so he additional weight balanced it out.

“I see the lake! Just a little more!” — Eve screamed to make sure everyone heard. She also looked back to check.

That was very timely of her, because she was the first to see an Icebrood colossus rising out of the snow mass.

“Behind you! Knives out! Owen, protect…” — the ranger tried to command, but was interfered by another colossus ascending form right under her. As she was falling down, Snail fluttered out and disappeared in the blizzard.


	11. The Ambush

As Eve’s consciousness emerged from dark depths, she jumped back to her legs. It must have been mere seconds, because the colossi (now five in total) only got closer to surrounding them, and only the Icebrood Norns under their tall frozen legs were running forward at Annika and Owen, however, the sylvari has cast a protective Ring of Warding with his hammer that was stopping them for the time being.

Meanwhile, Annika summoned a Meteor Shower to clear out the surrounding infantry. One of them still managed to crawl from behind, and as he rose to strike the girl with his frozen blade, he himself got an arrow to his nape.

“I think thunder skills will be more effective!” — shouted Eve, who ran to them, escaping nearest colossus’ icicle spells.

“I know. That was to warm up my fingers.” — Annika responded.

“The big guys are cutting distance now!” — Owen stated anxiously.

“Where’s Alde?”

The elementalist suddenly launched a mighty Chain Lightning at one of the giant beings. The right hand of the creature fell into the snow, but the Icebrood colossus kept pushing the three of the party back to the lake, and they only had time to chat as they ran from the threat that was too bulky to face directly.

“Alde’s doing what she’s best at, cutting shaman throats!” — Owen shouted to Eve as she was releasing arrow after arrow into the closest colossus, not doing fatal damage to it yet. She wanted to say: “I hope she’s okay back there” to show her caring side, but Annika shouted at her at the same time:

“Shoot them in the legs, for Dwayna’s sake! We need as few of them on the ice at the same time or we go underwater too quickly! Owen, go take on this one, we’ll try to go past him and break the circle! This is our last chance to not fight on the ice! Go!”

Owen followed quickly; he took a charge into a colossus and managed to knock him down. The others were very close, however, so they summoned a whole storm of icicles to the place where the girls were going to run through.

“Get back!!” — the sylvari man screamed and pulled out his shield to try and absorb the icicles. He did succeed in this, so did Eve in dodging the damage, but Annika was thrown off her feet and into the snow right where the lake surface began.

Eve rushed to her to raise her up.

“Let’s just run through the lake.” — the ranger suggested.

“Let’s. But that will not work.” — Annika said in response.

Owen raised his hammer and slammed it upon the lying colossus’ eye, finishing him. But when he raised his head he saw that another one came close enough to deliver him a physical strike, and one more charged more icicles at him while the other two and the rest of the Icebrood ran to chase the girls.

He did not manage to switch to his shield in time, so he got a heavy magical hit right in his chestplate. The piece of armour was cheap, cracks appeared in it right away, and its owner flew a few meters away, spine to ice.

The golem who was supposed to hit Owen with a frosty fist, however, was bothered by something all this time. He has been struck by a multitude of knife hits and had to let go of one of his hands before he managed to throw the tiny thief from his back.

Alde landed on her feet, but amidst a dozen hostile norns, so she had little options but to cloak and dagger away into the snow. Her mostly dark clothes contrasted with the whiteness, but she took advantage of the Icebrood corpses lying around, as well as bad overall visibility.’

Eve and Annika ran through the lake, seeing lights on the other side as promise of their salvation. As they approached what seemed to be snowdrifts, the “snowdrifts” revealed themselves as Icebrood elementals, who immediately casted a spell together, which made the ice near them explode, adding a finish touch to the trap they set: a huge boiler , but now with no other sides to run other than into the hands of the giant ice beasts.

As the colossi came closer while Annika was parrying the elementals’ projectiles, Eve started to think of a way out of trouble. There wasn’t any — not without reinforcements, and she had to rely on Owen getting up and doing some kind of a miracle.

“Anni, we need to cut the fourth side! That’ll win us time! I’ll take the elementals” — the ranger said.

Annika instantly looked at the enemy approaching and only breathed out: “True” before blasting the ice in front of the colossi. Eve has managed to shatter the elementals with her arrows in the meantime.

Owen rose up. He saw the girls on an island of ice, facing two giant Icebrood monsters whose next step surely was to sink them in the freezing cold lake.

But what he saw when he looked the other side amused him even more. The only thing he understood for sure right then was:

“The rescue came.”


	12. Rescue

A female voice shouted out the orders in a commanding tone from the snow, but Owen couldn’t make out a single word. He only saw a muscular arctodus jumping at one of the colossi’s legs, a load of grenades exploding under the other leg, and, finally, a norn warrior breaking the monster like a two-layer window with several crushing mace swings.

Second beast, in the meantime, was crippled by some kind of corruptive sorcery. He tried to toss some icicles into the blizzard, but probably missed. Then the arctodus’ owner appeared. He sliced away the only remaining arm of the colossus with his greatsword before a rifle shot in the eye put a stop to his life.

The warrior, the ranger and his pet arctodus then rushed onto the ice to rescue Eve and Annika. Owen watched them as one more member of the second party approached him from behind.

“Jag sporre häneltä!” — she shouted, grabbing the sylvari’s attention.

A norn Engineer walked to him. Her hair was so blond you could call it “on the edge of white”. She was taller than Owen — no surprise there. Her equipment hid a good percent of her body, but he made a conclusion that she was thinner than an average norn woman.

“How many of you in total?” — She asked.

“What a beautiful accent,” — Owen thought. Then he realized he needs to answer verbally too. — “Four! Two girls there and one somewhere in the snow, where most of the Icebrood corpses are.”

As the engineer turned around to help her necromancer in finishing the rest of the snow ambushers, he asked: “Who are you? Just for my future prayers to have an address.”

“Loka Argonen. The boys are Tuomas, Ulfrik and Leif. And keep your prayers to your friends. They most likely are still in trouble. A sweet alternative would be helping them personally.”

With that said, Loka jumped into the blizzard.

* * *  
The elder shaman and the rest of Icebrood started to run away the moment they saw that a rescue crew has arrived. The blizzard was still heavy, the snow was above their knees. No wonder they did not notice their elder shaman suddenly disappearing.

The creature was pulled under the snow, ice cold dagger blade pressed against its throat, playful whisper forced itself into its ears:

“I’m not expecting much from you, you brainwashed slave. So here’s a simple one:

What’s made of water but also dies when put into water?”

The shaman just growled in response, hearing the speech but not understanding what is going on.

“Better take your time and think, because if you’re correct, you’ll keep. Your. Life. Do you understand?” — Alde said a little louder this time.

“Yes.” — the shaman said very clearly. — “You are so smart. Given Jormag’s knowledge, you could be a worthy follower.”

“Answer. Or die. What’s made of water but also dies when put into water?” — tiny thief didn’t show a sign of doubt.

“…Water?” — was shaman’s last word. He was dead next second.


	13. Doubt

Icebrood Colossi have managed to flip the ice floe with the two girls on them by the time Ulfrik and Karl wrecked into them. Annika quickly cast more ice under her feet, but Eve fell down into the freezing water, hitting her head against a chunk of ice and losing her conscience once again.

She has spent about twenty seconds in the lake before Owen dived after her personally and pulled the ranger to the surface. Wrapped in the warrior’s coat, she was brought to Durgar’s Homestead. Owen and Annika walked near the norns carrying Eve, later joined by Loka and Leif the necromancer together with Alde, whom they found among the corpses, almost unharmed but with a disappointed look in her eyes.

Grey-haired Durgar opened his homestead’s door for the eight of them.

“Vi doblet numeroina.” — Loka told him and proceeded to lead the crowd to the bedrooms.

“Joo. I prepared some more hot wine for the guests, if they would like it.” — the host said.

“Anything hot will do, especially wine.” — Owen replied, his voice hoarse. — Wait, did you say “some more?”

“We were in the middle of getting drunk to a pulp when the eagle flew in through the chimney, calling for help.” — Ulfrik, the Ranger said.

“Yas! We had a moot arranged for today, but Jormag also was in a partying mood today, so we were the only party that actually came through all this… weather.” — Karl, the Warrior continued.

The homestead was designed to hold norn parties called moots frequently, with large table hall and a lot of bedrooms which rarely were fully used as approximately one third of the attendants usually preferred sleeping at/under the table for some reason.

There were attempts to unravel this phenomenon, but nearly all of the respondents answered the question with the same answer, which was in fact another question. It was:

“Where am I?”  
* * *  
Eve, Annika and Alde were given hot beverages and left alone to have some rest. Owen also had his hot wine, but stayed in the hall to chat with the second group’s leader, Loka.

“So, you are also a party, you go together all the time, fight the dragon’s minions and stuff, am I right?” — asked the sylvari Guardian.==

“That’s what we have here. Plus the dredge. It gives us enough money to do what we want in the free time, when we divide and go home for, say a week in a month.” — Loka answered.

“Cool.”

“No. It’s not cool.” — she said sharply. — “Everyone does that. You pay your service of trying to clean the lands from the corruption and irresponsible land use. You murder tens of enemy minions each day without much fight. Then they come back again. Repeat. Profitable, respectable and incredibly boring when you get used to it. I tried to organize an outing into Frostgorge Sound or at least into Ascalonian fields, but the boys are happy with what they have. Karl has a pregnant wife; Leif has to visit his ill mother once in a short while; Ulfrik has… uh… a different excuse each time. Last one was: “Two of us are not going, because Karl has a pregnant wife and Leif has an ill mother.””

“Makes sense. Much more sense than going into a merciless blizzard and get ambushed.” — Owen said with a bitter smile.

“That’s the thing. It’s reckless. No one would go for something like that if there wasn’t something beyond that. I mean, you were in a huge hurry, afraid of missing something so important that risking your lives this way would be justified in the end.” — Loka’s guesses were all in the right direction.

“Yes. Exactly. We still are. I need to ask Eve how many minutes long will our rest be until we are going out.” — Owen suddenly left the chair he was sitting on and walked unsteadily to the girls’ bedroom.

“…how many minutes?!” — Loka whispered with pure admiration.  
* * *  
Eve regained consciousness precisely as Owen opened the door. Her gear was hanging on an especially fixed clothesline in attempt to get it as less soaking wet as possible. Annika and Alde were still fully equipped, only with their bags lying on the bed blankets. Snail was humbly sitting near the window, waiting for his mistress to give him a snack for fine service.

“It’s nice that everyone is here and we can start the post-fight analysis.” — Annika said.

“First, let’s arrange when we are going out again.” — Owen interfered.

Annika let out a very deep sigh, then told the guardian: “We are definitely not going out until the blizzard sets at least a little bit. Please, forget about that, Owen.”

“Analysis? You mean, pointing at people’s mistakes?” — muttered Eve, taking a good sip from a mug full of warm wine.

“We need to learn from our own bumps, at least, or we die from getting hit in the same place again next time.” — said Owen.

“Okay. Go on, Anni.” — Eve agreed.

“Thanks for the correct name simplification, Eve. First, we have only one crew member who did everything flawlessly.” — Annika began.

Owen raised his eyebrows.

“The bird, of course. He just flied to the place and just called for help, essentially saving our asses.”

“Agreed.” — said Alde.

“Next. Owen. Your…”

“I’m pretty sure I did everything I was ordered to do. You going to prove me wrong?” — Owen couldn’t hold it.

Anni threw a look full of one hundred percent pure poison into his eyes, but she did not actually have a motive for letting her anger loose in him, so she proceeded:

“No I’m not. Your conclusion is: you respond to commands pretty damn well, and if you follow a simple command of SHUT UP when someone in a bad mood is already talking, PLEASE.” — Annika inhaled deeply here. — “Then you will be a very fine part of the team, indeed.”

“I guess that counts as a positive characteristic. You can chill now, babe, your wine is boiling.” — Owen’s attitude was truly chilled, in contrast to Anni, who still was mentally pulled like a string.

She put the wine mug away, took another moment and continued:

“Now about... the commands. I originally thought that Captain Eve Jadebow will be directing the combat. Like any team captain does. I heard something tactic-related out of your mouth for the first time when we were on thin ice! Until then, it was me!”

“I… wasn’t expecting the ambush. I got knocked out for a few seconds in the beginning…”

“What kind of enemy would wait until you are ready?” — Annika was shouting already.

And Eve was still almost whispering: “I’m not used to being a captain, you know, I have been travelling through most distant corners of Tyria, but I was on my own.”

“But you signed for this and you signed us for this! You have to realize what others can give you and what they need from you. They needed orders from you!”

“I know what the books say about responsibility. That’s why the first thing I was searching for after I stood up was the fourth party member.” — Eve looked at Alde, so did Annika.

“Yeah.” — the elementalist’s dissatisfaction switched targets. — Disappearing right as the fight begins is not exactly what a good team player does.

“I did what was natural for me. What I do best. Strike them where they don’t see me.” — Alde defended herself, or so she thought.

“Oh dear.” — Annika let out a hysterical chuckle. — “You guys are garbage. In the morning, if Captain Eve’s still alive, we go out of here, return to Lion’s Arch and pretend we never met before until death finds us.”

No one in the room was pleased to hear this. Owen started with: “You think you were per…” but Eve interrupted him with newborn passion:

“Hey. You’re overreacting. Yes, we’ll have to wait a bit, probably until morning, the timings will be somewhat lost, but I’ll contact the agent and we’ll just adjust our plan to the situation. We still are most likely getting to the illusion guy first, it’s just slightly less sure.”

“That’s why we went right into an ambush in a roaring blizzard? So we could be surer? From what I heard about him, he has more chances to get us rather than the opposite.” — Annika was still sceptical. “I think we should turn around until someone is dead, as the prophecy said.”

The door opened suddenly. Owen, who was still standing near it, took a step back. Loka peeked in, holding a bottle of wine, and asked:

“I hope you’re comfortable here.”

“We sure are, thank you.” — Owen replied, puzzled like the other people in the room.

“I just decided… I don’t yet know where are you going next. But I sure am going with you next morning! That’s out of discussion! Feel free to wake me up.” — With that said, Loka slammed the door closed.

The Trinketeers were silently exchanging their glances, brows high as the Shiverpeaks Mountains themselves. Doubt consumed them as the snow kept whirling hard behind the window glass.


	14. The Villain

Aris kept waiting. It was not easy for him and probably unbearable to his goons. The rags he rested on were getting more and more dirty. The water still was only for drinking, but it was also going to run out by next sunrise. They had some jewellery looted, but it was not much if divided for everyone, and they could not sell them for water. Provision situation was only slightly better.

The sun was high in the sky. The bandits who were fortifying the gate took a break as their leader called them to show something. There was a wooden basin covered with a rag. It was carried in by the illusions five minutes ago.

“You know that our water supplies are running out, boys. Following one of your suggestions, I sent illusions down to a stream in the valley. They brought back this.” — An illusion pulled off the rag, revealing that the basin was full of water.

“Isn’t that great? Isn’t that the solution to our problems? The water is clear!” — Aris picked up a brown piece of dirty cloth probably ripped away from a corpse and dipped it halfway into the water for a few seconds. Then he pulled the cloth out and threw in on the ground.

The bandits saw the wet part of the cloth going visibly rougher, then completely smooth, then rock solid and shiny purple over twenty minutes.

“Yes, the water is definitely clear. Like, crystal clear! In an hour it will be an accomplished Branded crystal. Answering the question “why can’t we gather water from the valley”. It is a deadly trap set especially for thirsty people like us.”

“We got that we can’t wash with it, but uhm… maybe we can still drink it and the bad stuff goes away with the pee?” — asked one of the bandits.

“If being shot between the eyes half an hour later by me is your wildest fantasy, you can try that. I thought I just demonstrated why it is a bad idea. That stuff is to stay inside of you.” — Aris answered.

Another bandit spoke up: “Hey boss, the scouts say the Sentinels are bringing supplies for the whole next week. A large caravan passing this evening. As it goes out of the Skara Braevus and past us, it’s the perfect spot for an ambush.”

Aris listened, watching the rest of the camp raising their sad unwashed heads. “Give me a minute” — he heard himself saying this.

Too loud! Too damn loud! They were going to rob the caravan to the last wheel. They will get all the water they need. However, they won’t ever get a chance to use all of it. Because Fort Brandview asks: “Where are the supplies?”. Then Kinar Fort also asks: “Where are the damn supplies?”. And then Aris Prao’s camp territory is an occupational hazard deserving a thorough decontamination.

He was not sure that he could make enough illusions to hold the heavily armoured Sentinels back. And he was even less sure that he would wake up next morning after such a mental workout. He needed reinforcements, but only one recruit came this morning.  
If only the caravan was coming two days later or three times smaller so that he could feed the open mouths. Aris did not have the power to make the caravan smaller.

At this moment, an idea struck him.

He. Had. The. Power. To. Make. Less. Mouths.

“These are great news. Let’s begin our ambush preparation!” — he shouted.

It will be unforgivable. It will be a betrayal. It will win time and save the rest of the camp.

As the bandits happily started to equip themselves for the ambush, Aris Prao ordered the illusions to put a rag over the basin and sneak it into one of the tents instead of spilling it in the valley, where he filled it.


	15. Belief

Annika turned out to be the most tired of the party. She asked for another mug of wine and fell into deep sleep upon finishing it.

The room went silent, everyone else was resting, but not quite sleeping, as it was too early on the clock . The sun has set, and only candles were lighting the interior, giving a peculiar reddish tint to the wooden walls.

Eve looked at her teammates. Alde sat in the corner of her bed, looking ferociously at sleeping Anni. Owen placed himself on the other side of the room, which the ranger found strange. He was more chilled overall, but still his glance signaled of uncertainty, and, furthermore, he did not even look his sister’s side to perhaps ease her discomfort.

“Alde. Don’t look at her like that. She said these things not out of her meanness or arrogance. She just wants us to be better and learn from our mistakes.”  
“She thinks she’s perfect and we are garbage. It’s about being good enough to do the job and get the money. It was all about money since the beginning, not the teambuilding bullshit.” — Alde whispered coldly.

Eve sighed. “Next time we’ll just plan our actions beforehand and there will be no reason to accuse anyone of incompetence. We are going forward. Tomorrow at 6. Have your rest, next one will be right before the assault.”

Alde’s eyes went wide upon hearing this. Eve’s confidence in the team’s mission surprised her considerably. And that confidence was… infectious.

“Yes, we’ll do this. There’s no doubt in that. Especially if there’s one more of us.” — Eve concluded. — “Owen. Your chestplate needs repairing, right?”

“You’re hoping to reach Blazeridge Steppes by next night, so I guess we don’t have time for that.” — Owen answered, rubbing the cracks on thick but cheap steel.

“True. Let’s hope we’ll find you another one on the way...”


	16. A Slight Overbrand

Two hours before the ambush, everything was ready. Weaponry, explosives, camouflage so the bandits could pretend to be large rocks. They were waiting for Aris the Elusive to come out and lead them to their glory.

The shape appeared from the larger tent. Aris approached his heist team.

“Lookin’ good to go!” — he said looking over them. — “Wait, what’s that?” — he pointed at one of the bandits’ head.

Everyone looked at the poor lad to see his head covering itself with a purple matter.  
“  
Step away from the rest!” — Aris shouted, drawing his pistol.

“Boss, Robbie’s also got it.” — a voice came from the crowd that was starting to worry noticeably, beginning with people who found themselves becoming Branded. The number of them was growing bigger — and even bigger than Aris expected when he poisoned one of the two drinking water reservoirs left.

A gunshot. Then another one. Then a cacophony of them. The half-Branded bandits were also fighting for their lives. Aris had to summon his illusion army to fight in this chaos and evade fighting with his own hands. As the last newborn enemy fell down and the gun smoke has finally set, the leader withdrew his illusions to see how many people his elaborate plot left unharmed.

Only to find himself alone in his camp, excluding scouts in the field, who were going to be here shortly after all the noise.

“No.” — was the only word Aris could breathe out, seeing the lifeless pile that was left of his camp crew.


	17. Complete

“What’s the whining about? You told us yourself to wake you up in the morning!” — Owen exclaimed.

“Yeah... I thought it would be, like, noon in the morning. Not six o’-vitun-clock!” — Loka exclaimed back.

Rising sun welcomed all five of the Trinketeers as they were making their way through fresh, crunchy snow reluctantly. No further interruption was expected on their way to the objective.

When adventurers stepped onto Ascalonian land, their brain seemed to finally wake up and unfreeze, and they started socializing all over again. Except for tiny Alde, of course, who still spoke only when she felt it important.

“Is it true that the Norn language is soon to stay in the past completely? Every one of them I met before was only speaking common tongue. Until I met your ex-party. You seem to be comfortable with it.” — Eve said.

“Oh, joo, you see, the trend now is “take your place in the bright future or be forgotten”. The boys are among those who won’t abandon traditions. As for me... I think our language is beautiful. Everyone who studied our musical legacy knows that. As long as there are people who look at their language beyond communication, the Norn language will live.”

“And could you... sing something?” — Owen dared to ask.

“No. Not until the mood is right. It’s... It’s important for me. I can’t just “sing a song”. It has to come down to me. Don’t you ever have the moment of clarity, when the words go up your throat, wrap up your tongue and then go out on their own journey?”

“Probably not. When I’m excited, I prefer to dance, not sing.” — Eve replied thoughtfully.

“By the way, I know who you are: Eve, unstoppable adventurer, Annika, a spelling noble in all meanings of it, Alde, hard to catch and forget, Owen, Alde’s brother, a talkative guardian with no past. What about our enemy?” — Loka wanted to know everything, and Eve also was in the talking mood.

“We’re after the Illusion Knuckle, a rather strong trinket giving quite a fighting advantage to a skilled user of it. Then there is Alan Aristarch Prao, also known as Aris the Elusive. From what I’ve heard from my spy on the field, he’s very efficient with this thing.

He used the knuckle to overthrow his own gang leader, which wasn’t well received by other leaders. Aris then decided against getting into bandit feuds and exiled himself into his current location. When a new faction joins an already hostile area, it is usually hard to establish a camp, but he managed to do it somehow.

The balance is fragile. We need to come there until someone else does. If Sentinels capture the knuckle, it’ll end up in a museum collection, where it will stay until the end of time. If the Branded get it, we won’t be able to sell an infected trinket afterwards. If the ghosts get it... they won’t, they should ignore the   
bandits, ‘cause they are also enemies of Sentinels.”

“Got it. Wow, this is some good preliminary scouting. Is that high standards of the Order of Whispers or is your spy so good?” — Loka expressed her impression.

“Yeah, he’s pretty good. He’s scouting for Prao, by the way.”

As the sun was at its highest, so was the spirit. The teammates chattered so passionately that they found the hours it took to approach the passage from Diessa Plateau to Plains of Ashford passing like mere minutes. Anni complained about her parents having too much influence on her career and future. Loka continued with some scientific monologue about gun shots as sources of long-lasting sound pollution. Eve felt obliged to interrupt it with her famous campfire assault story. Owen commented everyone’s tales richly, but didn’t tell any of his own. Alde was just silent, a lump of melancholy walking slightly aside.

The party took a short break on the Breachwater Lake to cool down a bit, have a snack and refill the bottles. Eve sat near Alde, away from others, to have tet-a-tet talk the thief didn’t expect yet also didn’t dare to slip away from sight right then.

“Hi Alde. I’ve been thinking: isn’t it a little boring to keep some distance between you and people who are supposed to be your team?” — asked Eve.

“It was like this all my life.” — Alde’s voice was cold and low, as usual.

“Your solitude has origins. People around you usually were your enemies, and we are not your enemies, we are your allies and probably friends in distant future. More importantly, we need to communicate during battle. Assaulting enemies from behind is indeed a way of doing damage to foes, but it might not be what the team needs.”

‘’This is all... new to me. What’s the better word... unnatural?”

“I used to be a loner just like you until I decided that I need other people to achieve what I want. Guess what, teamwork is also new and unnatural to me! If both of us had experience at this, I wouldn’t have needed to swim in Isenfall Lake at all.” — Eve giggled as if she was telling about her last game of Crab Toss, and not events that were a serious life threat to her.

“You mean there might be a day I’ll need to stand tall and fight dagger to spear face to face?” — Alde’s voice sounded much livelier now.

“If that is what your team needs, yes.” — Eve concluded proudly. — “Except in this exact situation it would be completely impractical.”  
The girls both laughed. As the lunch break ended, they marched onwards. To an observing pair of eyes, only now the group seemed to consist of five persons.


	18. The Intelligence

The scouts were astounded to see the massacre behind the gate of their camp. One of them, in fact, simply panicked and ran away, followed by another one who was also overwhelmed by fear, but stood until he saw his mate fleeing fast.

The rest were expecting their leader to tell them something. Aris stood alone amidst a mess of dead bodies, blood and weapons, and the smell was mostly that of gun smoke.

“Unfortunately,” — he said in a calmest tone he could sustain. — “there was a Branded invasion. It didn’t involve any Dragon’s warbeasts. They have poisoned the remains of our drinking water somehow. That means we won’t be able to do the planned ambush today. There is another one coming tomorrow morning, right?”

“It is much smaller.” — a scout said, sighing heavily afterwards. — “Won’t be a lot to us.”

“Our numbers are also much smaller.” — said Aris. — “We need reinforcements more than ever, but until we get them, our needs won’t be as high. Did you summon the outer scouts as well?”

“Yes, they will be here within minutes.” — a second scout answered.

A third one grunted loudly: “We could have more recruits if more of our scouts were trying to contact other fortune seekers instead of patrolling no-one-knows-what.”

In a second, there were stomping sounds, and, as the bandits turned their heads, they saw an “outer scout” rushing hard towards them.

Using all of the air he could catch, he cried: “Adventurers in Iron Marches!”. As the lad didn’t think about leaving something for his lungs, he fainted immediately after, even before seeing the bloodbath behind his comrades’ backs.

“Go back to your posts.” — Aris commanded. — “The only safe way to dispose of the bodies would be with my illusions. I still have faith in this place, but if some of you don’t, I’ll not set a bounty for heads of those who won’t come back from their points. Off my eyes you go, except you and you.” — he pointed at the lying scout and another one, who looked fit to carry the first one to the main tent.

Shortly after, they were all sitting on the rags. Aris was thirsty for the intelligence he was about to receive. If a group really was approaching him, it meant that another one of his intuition-driven long shots has hit the bullseye, and he had the strategic advantage.

“They just came from the south. I chose a point near Bloodfin Lake bridge, y’ know, the right one on the map. And I saw them crawling by the southern rocks, making a lot of noise. They were cutting the way to the east like people often do.”

“I’m not yet convinced they are after us. How many of them and how did they look?” — asked Aris.

“Five of them. Two humans, two sylvari, one Norn. One of them is a ranger. Her pet is an eagle. They seemed tired, most of their equipment is garbage, but they were very cheerful. Then I saw a signal flare and ran here.”

Aris took a minute to think, then said: “They were marching all day, of course they’re tired. They came to Iron Marches and are heading to Blazeridge Steppes, and no one comes here unless he knows what he’s after.”

After a pause, the leader chuckled unhappily and said: “Seems like a Whispers Agent was there when we did our first two ambushes, and now there is a group who actually took aim for my precious trinket.”

“What do we do?” — wondered the second scout.

“We will ambush them at night. They will stay in the Hellion forest, just outside of the passage that leads to Skara Braevus. Did you happen to notice who is their leader?”

“No, boss. But... There was only one man in the group.”

“We will try to kidnap him, or whoever they put on guard. There’s no way they will ask Sentinels for help, these bastards will take the knuckle. They’ll attack us without their leader and die quick. Now both of you go back and watch them, I’ll come later.”

Before the outer scout left the tent, he dropped: “I think most of us are staying despite what happened. We’ve always appreciated your fake scout idea!” Then the lad hurried to his position.

“Do you need a kick up your arse to move?” — Aris asked the other scout, who stood up, but did not leave.

“Sammy, the bombardier, told me you showed the infantry why we can’t take water from the valley. Then you moved it away. I was thinking: could this water infect the other, fresh one? That could explain why it happened. I don’t know how exactly that could have happened... except one of us did that on purpose, but...”

“Gosh, why do you guys need to turn on your thoughtbox in all the wrong moments? I already spotted a hole in our wall through which a small, say, Branded Mouse could have sneaked and fell into the water. That sounds much more likely to me than your paranoia bullshit. Let’s go see the hole.”

They went out of the tent. It was almost completely dark outside, with the Dragonbrand adding its violet tint to the night sky for some time to come.

Stepping over rotting corpses, Aris approached a place in the wall and poked it with his pistol: “There it is. Large enough, isn’t it?”

The scout sat down to see. He shook his head and said: “It’s too dark or the hole’s too small. I don’t see it.”

“There is a reason for that.”

The scout looked back at Aris inquiringly, only to hear:

“The hole’s in your head.” 

The shot was deafeningly loud, but no one in the sleeping steppes came to see who broke the silence this time.


	19. Unsuspecting

“Do we leave the fire on for the night? Is it safe?” — asked Alde.

“Sure. Nothing of what lives there will attack us, especially when someone of us will be awake. We go an hour before sunrise. Until then, we switch the guard each two hours. Who wants to be first?” — replied Eve

After a moment of silence Owen stated: “Alright. Let it be me.”

“I’ll be second. Then Anni, then Alde. Then Alde wakes everyone, we discuss the plan and go. All clear?” — said Eve.

“So, Loka just sleeps?” — asked Anni, looking at her. The engineer was already doing her part of the night plan, snoring sweetly.

“Yeah. Remember that she slept about six hours less than she expected. All fair. Be careful, Snail is not backing you up. He needs to sleep too.”

“Doesn’t he feel stuff with his bird senses?” — asked Owen, setting up his sleeping blanket that he would lie onto two hours later than everyone else does.

“No. I checked. He can’t be awesome at everything. If I didn’t pick him up, these drawbacks would’ve had him killed in the wild.” — said Eve, looking into her pet’s sharp but sleepy eyes.

“Why Snail?” — asked Annika.

“I don’t know.” — answered Eve. — “That’s just fun to call my beasts something inappropriate. A habit, you could say.”

The ranger would be glad to speak about beasts and birds, her specialty, but Anni was also already asleep. She probably didn’t even hear the last sentence. Alde also didn’t show signs of life.

“Take a nap, Eve. I’ll wake you up in two hours.” — Owen said soothingly, and she followed.


	20. Observers

Aris ran his hands through his completely gray hair.

“It’s probably even grayer under the moon.” — he thought.

The artifact on his hand has granted him power, but it all was not for free. He was aging several times quicker than his comrades did, as if he wasn’t considered old by them already. If Aris was fated to spend his last days in peace and prayers for his deeds, he needed to stop using the knuckle.

“After I dispose of this tea society, I’ll leave this kiddo in charge, take some of the loot we have, sell the knuckle and... start again somewhere far.” — Aris was thinking, looking at the scout who brought him good news yesterday, for the first time in a while.

“They didn’t put out the fire.” — the scout said.

“Good. They don’t feel the danger. I hope the bird won’t wake up. If it does, we don’t fight, we run. We go in, I take the man, you silence him and leave the note, then...”

“No. They’re changing. Stump sleeps, ranger wakes up.”

“The plan is same. Now we take her. Let’s wait for five minutes until we are sure it’s safe.” — said Aris, before asking a few seconds later: “What’s your name, kid?”

“Orvy.” — he answered. — “Orvy Bockol.”

“Weird one. No wonder I forgot it.”

Suddenly, their attention was drawn to someone who approached the campfire from the other side. Eve greeted him, they whispered some words to each other and he was off.

Aris was shocked to see that: “Did you see his clothes? This is my scout! They had a spy inside my fucking camp all this time!”

“I bet that was the last time you’ll see him.” — Orvy replied.

“Let’s go now.” — Aris whispered angrily.  
Gr


	21. They Came Flying From Far Away

Alde had a nightmare about venomous tentacles wrapping up her, growing out of her, soaking her in boiling poison. As they pinched off her whole left hand, she woke up.

The thief calmed herself and prepared to continue sleeping, but first she looked around only to not find the guard on their post. She saw Owen, Anni and Loka lying around the fire, so it was clear that Eve was missing. Soon they discovered her hat under the tree she sat under when Owen handed the post to her.

“Alert! Wake up!” — she cried.

Owen and Anni jumped to their feet in mere seconds. Snail would have too, if he wasn’t already using them to sit on the branch. Loka only opened her eyes.

“Where?” — asked Annika.

Alde wasn’t sure what to say, so Owen took the initiative after looking around for some time:

“Oh, I see now. It was no assault. It was a kidnapping. We no longer have Eve, our lord and saviour.”

“Is she… dead now?” — wondered Alde.

“It all comes to the strategy which Prao has chosen. If he wanted to discourage us — yes, she’s dead. If he wanted us to rush into his camp and get ambushed — no, she’s alive.” — Loka slowly rose from the ground.

“I’d bet on the second hypothesis.” — Annika said. — “We still can do what this fucker does not expect, what we probably should have done a long time ago.”

“What is it?”

“Get discouraged. Go home. Aris Prao turned out to be smarter than us. He spotted us and stroke where we did not expect. My prophecy’s met. No one else will get hurt today. We turn back and do some raiding together, if you’d like. That’s a safer…”

“One more word, and I’ll feed your tongue to the bird!” — cried Alde at the top of her voice, tears running down her angered cheeks. — “Eve brought us together, made us a team, got us this far, and we abandon her for certain death at first possibility!?”

“Heya, quiet there. His scouts might still be watching.” — Owen tried to interfere verbally.

Annika has heard enough emotional speeches from the tribune at her municipality, so she just proceeded with her position. “If we don’t think rationally, we perish. It separates us from other beasts. Eve did the dirty teambuilding work, but we don’t lose any firepower in her face.”

Alde leapt forward, roaring and aiming both her knives at the noble’s pretty face in a burst of uncontrollable anger. Anni didn’t expect that and tried to block with bare hands, but Owen managed to cast Shield of Absorption around her, so her attempts to deal heavy injuries to the elementalist failed, and Loka arrived to pull her away soon after.

The engineer pushed the thief to the ground and said strictly: “Knives can ruin lives and words can ruin empires. Both of you will draw back your weapons immediately.” — Loka pulled the map out of Eve’s backpack and secured it on the grass with small stones. — “Eve will not die unrescued. However, we need the rational thinking thing here before we make a single step towards the enemy.”

“Yeah, you better listen to Ms. Experience. She knows something.” — Owen added, feeling that the need to support the idea that would potentially distract the other two teammates from killing each other.

“Last time I saw this map, there was nothing else on it, but now we have some drawings of the camp. I’m not sure when, but Eve has managed to meet the Whispers agent who gave the information. One gate. One main tent. Four secondary tents. Rocks from three sides.

As we come, he’ll try and surround us with illusions with guns. His cheapest trick. Right?”

“Yeah” — said Annika.

“How do we survive or avoid that? The damage is massive.”

“We duck and they shoot himself.” — said Owen. — “Easy enough.”

“That would be worth trying if he didn’t see what he’s doing.” — chuckled Loka.

“Can we make him?” — said Alde.

“Make him what?”

“Make him blind.”

Everyone thought about the idea for about a minute as Snail flied around them without a familiar shoulder to sit on, screeching out his disapproval of situation. Then Loka started to think aloud: “Illusion Knuckle, you say. Illusions are his arms, but are they his eyes? The more I think about it, the less possible it appears to me. I have some smoke grenades in my arsenal. If we throw them between the army and the main tent, where he’s coordinating them from — cause that’s the best view on the gate — and come in, we try to explode them real quick and rush him!

“Shouldn’t the guns also make a lot of smoke when shot at once?” — supposed Annika. —“We survive the first shot, and then he’s unarmed!”

“It sounds good over the map, but will it sound as good on the place? He should also have some multi-shot guns…” — said Loka.

“Then you can focus on them while we break through.” — suggested Alde.

Loka rolled up the map, stood up, tucked it into Owen’s backpack, then took a couple of steps, turned back to the rest and asked:

“Are you ready to claim your first one, Trinketeers?”

“Yes we are!” — said Owen. Alde and Annika limited their answer to a nod.

The norn looked over her teammates again, opened her mouth and sang:

“De kom flygende langt kauka’a,  
nu är heidän deres stave.  
Jag älskar høre tarinoita kertove.  
De har sett steder maani an mitt land,  
och de har funnet nye taivaanranta.  
De talar konstigt, mutta ymmärrän.”

“Now I understand why they stopped using that language.”


	22. Aris The Elusive

Aris, Orvy and all scouts who were not watching the entrance in front of the gate went into their camp and escorted the leader carrying his captive to his tent.  
The purple night was coming to its end, but it was bright enough only inside his lair for Aris to see his newfound prisoner in detail: her simple but well-crafted clothes and armour under it, her bow and dagger lying near her (but out of reach), her blonde hair. She was awake by then, but was looking around intensely instead of trying to break free from her bonds.

“Look at it. It’s perfect.” — said Aris

“Too flat for my taste.” — said Orvy.

“The fit, you schmuck! The material is cheap, it sits tight yet won’t prevent her from moving swiftly. She crafted it herself.” — Aris said while looking over Eve from her tied legs to tied hands to her muted mouth carefully. “Such talent in leatherworking wasted. But we need to…” — he stopped amidst his speech.

“Sorry, boss. I don’t have such an eye for this kind of stuff.”

Aris ignored Orvy’s line completely:

“Hey. I know that face.”

He pulled the cloth gag out of Eve’s mouth. Her face expression was telling she clearly did not remember seeing Aris.

“Kenna’s camp in Kessex Hills. I made the mistake to let you dance by the fire and distract us so the Seraph could strike. They got everyone…” — he whispered.

“… except Alan Aristarch Prao, Eduardo the Fruitful’s right hand.” — said Eve, going back to her favourite story to tell once again.

“Thousands around me fell as I was taught my lessons, but the most important was learned on that exact day: Before you take a try, never make it your last one.”

Aris saw Eve looking at the bluish trinket on his right hand.

“You’re after this, and so are your friends, right? I found this treasure when no one else was looking.”

“They’ll come and paint this tent with your insides.” — said Eve through her teeth.

“First part — yes, second — I would argue over that. — said Aris, filling all remaining space with his exact replicas, who said in unison with him:

“THEY'LL NEED TO FIND ME FIRST.”

* * *

After Aris reapplied the gag into Eve’s mouth, Orvy asked him:

“Maybe we should make her dance for the boys, you know, for the spirit, if she’s good at it.”  
The owner of Illusion Knuckle took a deep breath and said in response:

“Maybe go fuck yourself?”


	23. Smoke

The sun was rolling out slowly. Another day for the unfriendly steppes was about to begin, but not yet. That is when the Trinketeers appeared under the enemy camp outer walls, which were constructed by Ascalonians once and degraded by time later on.

“He’s looking the other way. Go on.”

“It’s a pity that we don’t know how to speak with an eagle. He could have helped us greatly.”

“Can’t send it to rescue directly too, cause he might just die.”

As the party went past the line of sight of an actual scout, they saw a grey-haired one.

“That must be an illusion of Prao. Let’s do a field test.” — said Loka.

She took a small stone from the ground and threw it into the illusion. It bounced off his forehead and back into the engineer’s hand without any noise. The real scout did not notice that either due to being too far.

“He didn’t see that and, obviously, didn’t feel that.” — whispered Loka. — “Just as we thought. Let’s proceed.”

When they saw the closed gate and two scouts standing on it, the team took a pause to regroup.

“The gate. Alde, take this and be careful.” — Loka said as she gave the thief a sack of grenades. Alde used her notorious stealth to put the sack under the gate and retreat a little, all completely unnoticed.

“Anni, are you angry enough to make this an easy walk?” — asked Loka.

Anni was concentrating all this time. Now she took a deep breath, clutched her staff that was already crackling with energy, hopped from behind the corner and gave all she could into the camp gate.

The whole structure was aflame within a second, and grenades helped make an explosion of exceptional scale. The very gate collapsed immediately and the hand-made part of the walls was doomed to fall very shortly. The explosion has also thrown the two guards inside the camp.

The smoke from the burning gate remains was dense, so the team met no resistance before they reached it. Then, as planned, Loka threw in the smoke grenades.

“One… two… three… four… five. Go!”

They leapt together over burning rubble to see nothing but grey curtains around. A scout standing to the left screamed: “They’re in!”, and Anni screamed “Duck!” at the same time.

A second later, there was a deafening sound of a whole gun battery going off and over the attackers’ heads. Annika stood up and gusted the smoke away in front of them.

As Alde saw the great tent, she ran towards it. Loka followed her, and Anni as the source of damage was left on the field with Owen to guard her.

There surely was something to guard from as the illusions were diving out of the smoke with their daggers out, swinging violently, trying to achieve a blind hit. Annika threw the flames upon earth, and the foes were stepping on them, deprived of their ability to feel themselves burn to nothing. Owen covered her as he could, throwing the attackers back as far as possible, until his shield just fell apart after hundreds of hits deflected. Then he had nothing left but to counterattack with the hammer.

Loka and Alde, in the meantime, broke into the main tent only to find that no one but Eve was inside.

“Cut her free.” — Loka commanded as she kept searching for a possible ambush, not letting her guard down. She pulled back the suspiciously looking back curtain of the tent, only to find more nothing. — “This looked like a niche or a passage… but it’s not.”

Alde daggered through the ropes swiftly. As soon as her hands were free, Eve pulled the cloth out of her mouth and shouted “Prao didn’t flee, he’s among his replicas!

Outside, Annika was continuing to clean the blind replicas with good proficiency. They were just coming to die to her. She has calmed down so much that she missed how precisely that illusion aimed at her with a pistol.

A shot — a whistling sound — a feeling of impact. An eagle screech was heard from somewhere in the smoke, and Anni made sure to throw an ice spike followed by a good lightning shock there. An ordinary bandit wouldn’t survive such strike, and Orvy Bockol, prevented from a next shot by Snail, fell dead as he was not much of anything else. Then sharp pain in Annika’s stomach made her descend to the ground and drop her staff.

Blades and bullets were continuing to be absorbed by Owen’s armor. He was swinging his hammer left and right, but the enemy kept approaching him. Suddenly, one of them rose from the ground lightning fast right before him, put a dagger inside a crack in Owen’s chestplate and vanished. To his relief, so did the rest of the enemy as Loka and Eve finally arrived to the battlefield.

“He can’t be far.” — Owen told them, feeling the blood on his lips.

“Don’t worry, Alde’s after him.” — said Loka, setting up her healing turret. Eve, meanwhile, prepared her own healing spring to improve her injured teammates’ chances.

Annika was lying, screaming from pain she never knew existed, and Owen half-sat, leaning on his heavy hammer, almost silent but shaking hard.

As Loka inspected his wounds, which were not limited to the dagger in his chest — he had some severe cuts and a shot to a leg — Owen said:

“Help Annie. I’ll be fine.”

“I wouldn’t say so confident. Your body isn’t healing too much from our devices. You must be under some kind of heal-reducing condition.”

“I sure am. And I know how it’s called.” — Owen Schachels breathed out calmly before never taking another one.


	24. Mugged

Aris Prao was running down the narrow cave barely enough for him to fit in. When he was choosing the place for the camp, he never really cared about how well it suited a potential defence. It was only about this escape route, for that was the secret of Aris the Elusive’s elusiveness.

He heard one of his scouts following him there, but now he could not hear his steps anymore. Did he get stuck or is he under pursuit already? “It better be first”, he thought.

Then he stopped all of a sudden. Why did he stop? Because there was a blade near his throat. Not good.

“I’ll give you the knuckle, okay? You get what you want and no more blood is spilled.” — Aris told the mysterious assassin who was quick enough to reach him despite his best efforts.

A hand slowly pulled the trinket off his right hand. But the blade remained there.

“What else do you need?” — asked the bandit.

“What is it that given one, you’ll have either two or none? If you are smart enough, you live.” — Alde whispered candy sweet, but the candy was poisoned for sure.

Aris looked at the blindingly bright exit from the cave that was shining twenty meters ahead, but found strength to close his eyes so that would not distract him.

He recollected himself staring at his reflection in the basin full of Branded water. If he threw it away right then, he wouldn’t be able to stand between accepting to command the ambush and preventing it at great cost.

He recollected himself hearing the gate of his camp collapsing. At this moment, he aimed his pistol at his captive. Kill or spare? You shoot in the air — you no longer have the power to solve one’s fate in a move of a finger…

“It’s choice, darling. Choice. Made a lot of them recently. Some bad ones as well.”

Aris Prao stood alone in the cave. He chose to spare Eve Jadebow as a sign to himself in his future life, where he will be seeking Gods’ mercy until his last breath.


	25. Gains And Losses

The Trinketeers sat inside the great tent. The sun was shining, but it did not match their mood. The healing magic took its time and cleansed Annika’s wound from any infections and dissolved the remainder of the bullet inside her, leaving a lot to be mended but preventing any death possibilities. The elementalist slept on Loka’s knees now.

Meanwhile, Eve has finished gathering valuables, including the hapless trinket. It would be rational to start dividing the income now, but the empathic part of her mind told her it won’t bring enthusiasm into her mates.

She looked at Alde, who was just scratching the ground before her with a dagger, and said:

“Scarred. Tired. Emptied. And victorious.  
You fought as a team and did what needed to be done. It will be tough to go back to this day in your thoughts, but you should be proud of yourselves.  
We lost our Guardian. We lost Owen Schachels, brother of Alde Scha…”

“No.” — said Alde. — “He wasn’t my brother.”

Loka raised her brow. Eve paused for a moment, before saying quietly:

“I… I know that. You never acted like siblings since the first moment. I just thought you would want to remember him like that. That’s what I would have done if I had a brother like him…”

“I have a hobby that brings me joy like nothing else does.” — Alde confessed. — “I put a knife to one’s head when there’s nobody to help him, and I set up a riddle for him. Smart ones will solve them and live. Those not good enough are taken by natural selection.

I found Owen robbing my hidden stash in Sanctum Harbor. He managed to solve the riddle, but, instead of running for his life, he offered to cooperate right away. As I usually have some admiration for those passing the test, I agreed. Next thing we did together was coming to that strange meeting in Crow’s Nest.  
Owen… had no fear of losing his life, nor did he value it. He seemed cheerful, but there was only emptiness inside. He never told any of us what led to this and will take this mystery to his grave.”

“And you, Eve, have a brother like what?” — asked Annika, who wasn’t sleeping as deeply as someone would expect.

“My brother?” — said Eve. — “Oh, we went separate ways a long time ago. Rudolph is much smarter and weirder. I don’t know where he is and what he does, but he’s definitely alive.”

“But you know what you’re doing. I’ve said that you are incompetent in combat,” — Anni said. — “Which is entirely true. But the lesson for me was that a team is not only about how well you fight… it is also about being friends out of combat.”

“Wait.” — Loka suddenly said. — “Judging from what Alde said, she must have given a riddle to Aris Prao. Did he solve it?”

Alde kept silent.

“You left him alive??” — shouted Eve.

“Are you fucking crazy?” — Anni managed to add before hysterical laughter overtook her.


	26. Back To Lion's Arch

Annika, Alde and Loka sat in Crow’s Nest, feeling the light breeze on their skin. The tavern was full of life this time; almost all of the tables were occupied. The noble and the norn were drinking wine they bought with the money they got from all the jewellery they looted in the bandit camp before leaving. “Clink!” went the clean glasses in hands that shed a lot of blood.

They were waiting for Eve to come with the biggest part of their reward: the Illusion Knuckle money.

“What if she just took it and left for a new exciting journey, probably with a team of new excitingly stupid adventurers?” — said Anni.

“She’s not that stupid. Pushing us over the edge once and thinking we won’t cross it again just to find her?” — said Loka.

“I once thought I will never go so far with people I see for the first time. And now “how did your journey to the East go?””

They both laughed.

“So she could definitely run with the mon… oh hi Eve.”

Eve pulled four fairly large parcels from her bag as she approached the table.

“Good evening, ladies! Do you have a slightest clue about what lies in these?” — she said.

“Something well deserved.” — assumed Loka.

“One thousand two hundred fifty blue gems. If you double-check and it’s not enough, the Black Lion accountant is downstairs and offers his head for an ill-served duty. Anni’s probably seen more gems at a time, but definitely not the rest of us.”

“No comments upon that.” — said Anni, who stood up and prepared to leave already.

“You in a hurry?” — asked Loka. — “We could make a celebration out of that.”

“So that Alde version two dot zero picks it up right from our drunken hands? Think for yourselves.”

Eve looked at Alde, who was thinking whether it was an insult or not, and proclaimed:

“Sure. You can hide the treasure for the time being. Bodyguards will escort you to wherever you feel like hiding it. But tomorrow, at the same time, we could do something celebratory and discuss what will be next.”

“Next?” — asked Loka.

“Yes. I already have a next target! I know I trust you, you probably trust me, and I hope that someone will come up for the next challenge!” — said Eve cheerfully.  
* * *

Annika and Loka both said they will consider this and left without finishing their glasses. Alde just disappeared, no surprise there. Eve didn’t leave right away, however. The blonde ranger with a pet eagle approached a table with one occupant, who was staring at some platinum material samples at the time, a small piece of paper for notes lying nearby.

“Hi Ponte.” — Eve felt free to sit next to the smith. — “Hey, I happen to have a book on that stuff.”

“Really? That’s lucky, but there’s too much water in the Krytan theoreticians’ works.”

“Is S. Rympel a Krytan?”

Ponte raised his brows and actually looked at the ranger now.

“A Savelii Rympel book?” — he was genuingly surprised. “That would be nice to have. Can you lend it to me for a few days sometime?”

Then he realized.

“Oh. You’ve been on a journey with your team, right? Did it go okay?”

“How do you think?” — asked Eve.

Ponte thought for about a second, then squinted his eyes and said: “You girls all were of offensive professions, and Snail is no tanking animal. Did your tank not come for his gains today?”

“He won’t come tomorrow either. And the day after that. We buried him where he died in forgotten lands of Blazeridge Steppes. And he will stay there until Zhaitan wakes up from the dead and makes him walk here.” — Eve’s voice was trembling now. — “He died a war hero’s death: quick, noble and completely unnecessary.”

Ponte seemed to take the news easy, but his hands were grabbing the tabletop way too firmly.

“We almost lost another one of us this day and I survived only to a direct mercy from my death enemy. No. It went pretty far from okay. All because someone who seemed to care for me did not help me when I needed it most.” — Eve went on.

“I had business. I told you.” — Ponte answered laconically.

“I got a lot of gems. They are painted with unnecessarily spilt blood.”

“You stop that, okay?” — the smith suddenly interrupted Eve. “Using my responsibility as a weapon against me. No one forced that guy to join your team. No one forced you to take him where it was dangerous. Does your moral sound like “join me, or people will die”?”

“You are a coward, Ponte. Annika was right.” — Eve felt confused, offended and angry all at once. — “You spent too much time in Lion’s fucking Arch, and now you are afraid to step outside. You convinced yourself you’re more useful there, but this is not true. You do what thousands of smiths can do, but no one fights like you do, and I had luck to witness that some time ago. What happened to Ponte Flori during these two years?”

They looked into each other’s eyes in silence for about a minute. Then Ponte looked away and outside, rubbed his dry eyes and said:

“I’ll come to your next assembly, listen to what you are up to and most likely stay anyway. Is that okay with you.”

Eve nodded, and the smith smiled weakly before picking up his junk from the table and leaving, not forgetting to wish a good night to his friend.

Now Snail was the only company of the ranger. The eagle sat silently on her shoulder, waiting for a command.

Who will actually come tomorrow? Will Annika, Loka and Alde go for another journey or did they have enough? It was going to be a long wait until next evening when the answers will arrive.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear readers,  
> This story is set in Tyria, but every character, as you could notice, is original. This weird concept is born by my love for creating and developing characters mixed with my complete inability to maintain interest in my own project unless it is happening in my favourite game universe.
> 
> The most important thing for me is your feedback. If you read this and have some kind of conclusion, please leave it in comments section. Learning from constructive criticism is the best way of improving over yourself.  
> Thanks a huge lot.


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